Prestress Losses in Pretensioned High-strength Concrete Bridge Girders

Prestress Losses in Pretensioned High-strength Concrete Bridge Girders PDF

Author: Maher K. Tadros

Publisher: Transportation Research Board

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 73

ISBN-13: 030908766X

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"The HCM includes three printed volumes (Volumes 1-3) that can be purchased from the Transportation Research Board in print and electronic formats. Volume 4 is a free online resource that supports the rest of the manual. It includes: Supplemental chapters 25-38, providing additional details of the methodologies described in the Volume 1-3 chapters, example problems, and other resources; A technical reference library providing access to a significant portion of the research supporting HCM methods; Two applications guides demonstrating how the HCM can be applied to planning-level analysis and a variety of traffic operations applications; Interpretations, updates, and errata for the HCM (as they are developed);A discussion forum allowing HCM users to ask questions and collaborate on HCM-related matters; and Notifications of chapter updates, active discussions, and more via an optional e-mail notification feature."--Publisher.

Investigation of Long-term Prestress Losses in Pretensioned High Performance Concrete Girders

Investigation of Long-term Prestress Losses in Pretensioned High Performance Concrete Girders PDF

Author: Thomas E. Cousins

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 67

ISBN-13:

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Effective determination of long-term prestress losses is important in the design of prestressed concrete bridges. Over-predicting prestress losses results in an overly conservative design for service load stresses, and under-predicting prestress losses, can result in cracking at service loads. Creep and shrinkage produce the most significant time-dependent effect on prestress losses, and research has shown that high performance and high strength concretes (HPC and HSC) exhibit less creep and shrinkage than conventional concrete. For this reason, the majority of traditional creep and shrinkage models and methods for estimating prestress losses, over-predict the prestress losses of HPC and HSC girders. Nine HPC girders, with design compressive strengths ranging from 8,000 psi to 10,000 psi, and three 8,000 psi lightweight HPC (HPLWC) girders were instrumented to determine the changes in strain and prestress losses. Several creep and shrinkage models were used to model the instrumented girders. For the HPLWC, each model over-predicted the long-term strains, and the Shams and Kahn model was the best predictor of the measured strains. For the normal weight HPC, the models under-estimated the measured strains at early ages and over-estimated the measured strains at later ages, and the B3 model was the best-predictor of the measured strains. The PCI-BDM model was the most consistent model across all of the instrumented girders. Several methods for estimating prestress losses were also investigated. The methods correlated to high strength concrete, the PCI-BDM and NCHRP 496 methods, predicted the total losses more accurately than the methods provided in the AASHTO Specifications. The newer methods over-predicted the total losses of the HPLWC girders by no more than 8 ksi, and although they under-predicted the total losses of the normal weight HPC girders, they did so by less than 5 ksi.

Model of Strain-related Prestress Losses in Pretensioned Simply Supported Bridge Girders

Model of Strain-related Prestress Losses in Pretensioned Simply Supported Bridge Girders PDF

Author: José Manuel Gallardo Méndez

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13:

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Prestressed concrete construction relies on the application of compressive stresses to concrete elements. The prestressing force is typically applied through the tensioning of strands that react against the concrete and induce compression in the concrete. Loss of prestress is the decrease of this pre-applied stress. The conservative estimation of the prestress losses is imperative to prevent undesired cracking of the prestressed element under service loads. A large fraction of the prestress losses is a consequence of concrete deformations. This fraction of the losses can be identified as strain-related losses, and these occur due to instantaneous elastic shortening, and time-dependent creep and shrinkage. Creep and shrinkage of concrete depend on many factors that are extremely variable within concrete structures. The time-dependent behavior of concrete is not well-understood, but recent findings in the topics of concrete creep and shrinkage provide a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms affecting the nature of these two phenomena. However, current design practices and prestress loss estimation methods do not reflect the state-of-the-art knowledge regarding creep and shrinkage. The main objective of this dissertation was the study and estimation of strain-related prestress losses in simply supported pretensioned bridge girders. Simply supported pretensioned girders are widely designed, produced and frequently used in bridge construction. Due to this common use, pretensioned concrete bridge girders has become fairly standardized elements, which results in a reduced variability in the behavior of pretensioned bridge girders, as compare to that of less standardized concrete structures. Hence, a simplified method was calibrated to estimate prestress losses within pretensioned girders to an adequate level of accuracy. To achieve an acceptable accuracy experimental data from the monitoring of pretensioned simply supported girders was used for the calibration of the method. The accuracy of this simplified method is comparable to that achievable using more elaborate methods developed for generic concrete structures.